


something in the way (you look at me)

by twosetmeridian



Series: counterpoint [twosetviolin oneshots] [20]
Category: Twosetviolin
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Fluff, Insecurity, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Romance, Singapore, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, YouTube, canon compliant to real life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29456661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twosetmeridian/pseuds/twosetmeridian
Summary: Brett misunderstands something while filming theWe Tried Teaching Violin Speaking Only Chinese!video. Eddy, ever the dutiful boyfriend, sets out to right some wrongs.
Relationships: Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Series: counterpoint [twosetviolin oneshots] [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560592
Comments: 6
Kudos: 107





	something in the way (you look at me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yo_itsella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yo_itsella/gifts).



> For Ella, because her [thread on Twitter](https://twitter.com/yo_itsella/status/1360356968490291203?s=20) opened my Breddy third eye much wider than usual and helped assuage my own doubts over what I was personally seeing in this video. Thank you so much! <3
> 
> Here be some sappy rambling nonsense and too many instances of the word _look_ —it’s a late Valentines’ Day fic (part 1/?), I suppose! 
> 
> Title from _The Way You Look At Me_ by Christian Bautista (yeah, I went there, filo gang).

Brett leans back in his seat and focuses on keeping himself together, because he’s a professional like that.

Eyes up, spine straight, chin in the air and steady. Smiling, always smiling. Don’t let them figure you out. Don’t let them see you’re unsettled.

(And by _them_ , yes, he does mean _Eddy_.)

He’s watching his boyfriend interact with the people in the room and especially with Zach, who’s a great friend and a funny guy and the unwitting object of Brett’s slow-rising jealousy. He’s not doing anything wrong or untoward or _anything_ , really, but the way Eddy looks at him is making Brett’s stomach turn inward, and he’s never been one to broadcast discomfort in public, so he’s saying nothing and pretending everything’s just fine and dandy when everything’s just—absolutely _not_.

A sense of insecurity is debilitating, and even moreso when it blooms in the path of a new relationship.

That thing right there curling insidiously in his chest: that’s an illogical feeling. He _knows_ it doesn’t make sense, he _knows_ it’s irrational, but he can’t quite give a flying fuck right now.

“So, about that picnic date with Edwina,” flits up from the other end of the table, the delivery made softer by the teasing grin that accompanies it. It’s a joke, and Eddy hasn’t even said anything in response aside from laughing, but the damage is done.

“I think you guys would have a lot of fun together,” Brett says. He gives Zach a smile that doesn’t feel fake on his face and then turns away.

(He’s good at pretending like he doesn’t care. He’s had years of practice, after all.)

*

They get home just as the sun is beginning to set over the Singaporean skyline. This, of course, is when Eddy suddenly makes use of his freaky psychic boyfriend powers and figures out that Brett hasn’t exactly been in the best of moods since the shoot. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

A pause, and then: “You know that doesn’t work on me anymore.”

Brett tries so hard not to snap, but his reply still stings to the quick when it leaves his mouth. “Well, _make_ it work, somehow.” The attempt at sidestepping around Eddy is met with gentle resistance.

“C’mon, Brett.” Eddy raises his hands in supplication. “Did I do something wrong?”

Huh. “Why do you assume it’s your fault?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious when you’re giving your boyfriend the cold shoulder and staring daggers at him when you think he isn’t looking.” That observation alone speaks volumes of just how much Eddy’s grown to know him, to know all of him and be direct enough to confront him on his bullshit. Once upon a time, Brett would’ve gotten away with a stone-faced glare of ambiguity.

Still, this isn’t something he wants to hash out any time soon, and so Brett shakes his head again. Firmer this time, the action sharper. “Sorry. It’s nothing. Really.” He tries to push past Eddy again, and once again, he’s halted in his tracks. “Stop it.”

“Not leaving you alone until you tell me.” Eddy tugs at the sleeve of the orange shirt, sliding his hand down over skin to rest at the juncture of Brett’s wrist, loosely holding him in place. “Please? Help me understand. I won’t know what I’m doing wrong if you don’t tell me.”

And yes, there’s that. _Communication_ —right, yes. He’d almost forgotten how important it is, and with the warmth radiating from Eddy’s touch buoying him up, the act of baring his throat in vulnerability seems a little less daunting than before.

Eddy’s here to catch him. Brett has to trust that he would.

Straight to the heart of the matter, then, bandage stripped off skin in a flash. “You look at him like,” his breath hitches, throat suddenly a barren desert, and Brett’s forced to pause, “like you look at me.”

He doesn’t explain who _he_ is, but already, Brett can see the gears in Eddy’s head turning, running back through the afternoon’s events to figure out what he means. When the realization dawns in those eyes, he’s already turning away, unwilling to see the journey Eddy’s face is about to undertake in response to his words.

Again: it’s an illogical feeling. It’s a really stupid little nothing that he’s somehow managed to fixate on instead of letting it go. He doesn’t know if Eddy’s going to laugh at him or brush off his concerns as senseless, and _fuck_ , but that scares him so bad.

“Nevermind,” Brett says. “It’s stupid.”

There’s silence for a few moments. He resolutely refuses to look up, but then Eddy shifts his weight, and suddenly, they’re holding hands.

“Look, I haven’t told you this before,” Eddy begins haltingly, “but I used to look for hints of you in other people.” He glances down where they’re entangled together, quietly stroking the soft skin between Brett’s thumb and pointer finger. “Friends, acquaintances, strangers I pass by on the street or share a bus seat with—it didn’t matter who. I’d find reasons to think better of them if they reminded me of you. I’d manage to smile in public transportation if I saw a grin that looked a little bit like yours.” Eddy laughs; it’s self-depreciating and utterly abashed. “It’s kinda stupid too. I couldn’t stop doing it, though.”

Brett finds himself the singular focus of Eddy’s gaze after an entire day spent agonizing about it, and for once, he has no idea what to say.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I think it carried over even now, that little habit. Even after I’ve gotten you. Even though I can finally keep you.” Eddy pulls Brett closer, just a bit until they’re breathing the same air. “So Zach reminds me of you—I think that’s what you noticed earlier today. Me seeing a little bit of you in him is making me like him more.” A pause, some quiet laughter. “But of course he’s not you. Not even close.”

And there, there’s the crux of the matter. This is where it all comes down to, isn’t it? His deep-seated fear that sooner or later, Eddy’s going to get tired of him. His stupefied disbelief over the fact that of all the people in the world, numerous fishes in the sea, Eddy has chosen him.

And here, here is where his doubts are dismantled piece by piece.

“You seeing me look at people a certain way doesn’t mean what you think it means, not really. You think I’ll end up liking them more than you? Think my feelings will change and I’ll leave you for someone else?” Eddy shakes his head. “I’ve loved you for fourteen years. If anything’s going to turn me away from you, it would’ve done so by now.”

It’s almost too much to listen to without weeping. “Eddy, I—”

“Brett,” Eddy says smilingly, and _that_ shuts him up. “Listen to me, okay? My head might get deceived by what it’s seeing for a good second or two, but my heart won’t ever change. It knows who it loves.” Eddy lifts their tangled hands to his mouth, kisses Brett’s fingers, then, and all the air gets caught in Brett’s throat. “It knows you.”

(And so what do you say, to that kind of declaration, that kind of healing? What do you say to everything you’ve wanted to hear and more?)

“That’s so fucking sappy,” Brett says, the words choking him up just a little bit, and if it sounds like _I love you_ and _I’m an idiot_ and _I want us to be looking at each other forever_ all wrapped up in one, then so sue him.

Eddy shrugs, unrepentant. “Doesn’t make it any less true. So maybe I just need to make you see what I see. We’ll work on it together. Okay?”

Yeah. Yeah, he is. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Eddy parrots back at him, stepping back to give him a dazzling smile. “Let me take you out for dinner, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Brett takes a deep breath, steadies himself in the aftermath. God, he’s been such a dick over this. “I’m sorry, Eddy.”

“It’s all fine. It just means you love me enough to get worried over such a little thing. I guess it falls to me to drill into you the fact that I am _not leaving you_ , _ever_ , and you’d be a moron to think it’s a foregone conclusion already.”

In lieu of crying the overwhelming heartsickness out of his system, Brett laughs and raises his eyebrows the way he does when he’s trying to seduce the man in front of him. “Oh, _drilling_ , now, is it?”

“Just you wait until we get back home,” Eddy says with an easy grin and an arm thrown over Brett’s shoulder, and oh, but his heart feels fit to burst in his chest.

*

After, Brett shuts up the insidious voice of doubt in his head and _observes_.

Eddy’s looking at him from across the table, grinning over the top of the menu he’s been perusing through. The candlelight flickers in the dark of his eyes, but it’s nothing compared to the light in them when Brett feeds him spoonful after spoonful of pasta and ice cream.

He looks at him like he’s still hungry after a three course meal.

The next day, Brett reviews the footage for the video they filmed together with Syakirah and Zach before he sends it over to Editor-san. From this particular angle, he sees everything from a different perspective.

Eddy’s looking at him from across the room, an occurrence that happens far more frequently than he first thought, now that he’s reliving it without the haze of panic and insecurity clouding up his brain.

Eddy looks at Zach too, yes, but the looks are fleeting. Transitory. Exceedingly chaste and built on the foundations of shared hilarity and mock-exasperation. After every glance, Eddy shifts his gaze back to him like he’s the touchstone upon which everything is measured against, the one true point around which the world turns.

He looks at him like he can’t ever bear to look away, even when he has to.

The air conditioning in their shared bedroom breaks one night. They forego the blankets and end up sprawled together in a heap of entwined limbs, talking to each other into the lonely hours of the night with the ceiling fan swivelling lazily above them.

Eddy’s looking at him from across the scant few inches between them, fingers stroking the outline of Brett’s face, tracing the seam of Brett’s mouth with something like worship.

He looks at him like he’d rather be nowhere else—

—and okay, yes, he gets it now. It’s a point Brett has to concede. The way Eddy looks at him: it really doesn’t come close to anything else.


End file.
